Dungeon Run: Accords

A small bit of Karthun lore: Felicos, The King of Shadows, The Lord of Chance is the patron deity of thieves, assassins, and fortune tellers, largely. In the Days of the Six Gods, Sehad, the World Warden held fate in his charge until he was murdered by Felicos. Unable to control fate (as he had intended), Felicos’ resigned to guard over fate and hold some sway over chance to cleverly ingratiated himself to the races of Karthun.

Mechanically, Mel’s priestess uses a deck of tarot cards as her holy symbol and may choose to draw a card in combat (rolled randomly). This card can help or hinder the priestess and her allies/enemies (Yes, I have a full list of the tarot deck and each card’s effect).

Since Felicos is only able to affect chance and twists of destiny (or that’s what I got from the text this late at night), I’m going to guess that Sehad would have total control of fate if he was still alive.

If a god can take (at least partial) control of another’s domain if one dies, did someone get some of Valkyr’s powers or that didn’t count since she only turned evil?

Unless the clerics use a different kind of Tarot deck, with Knight as a card it looks like the minor Arcana will also be represented (does the suit also change the result?).

If the player actually takes a card from a Tarot deck, I’m going to guess that the minor Arcana (being more common) only gives small bonus while the major ones will have more drastic effects.

Sehad was a steward of fate. He guided it a bit and protected it but Felicos believed (foolishly) that he could have absolute control over it.

As for Valkyr’s domains of valor, justice, etc. some are fostered by the remaining pantheon but nature abhors a vacuum (even among the gods) and there is a belief that one day the mantle of the God/Goddess of Valor will be filled once more. Sehad made such a cryptic prediction with his dying breath.

“In the darkest storm, the light of valor still waits to shine. All that is required, is time.”

It is this belief/prophecy that spurs The Mother of the Dead to actively hunt those who would take up valor and strive to be the new beacon of justice. Such is her pain and hatred.

The tarot card mechanic is absolutely great. One of my favourite P&P role-playing games, Sine Requie (sadly only available in italian), uses the minor and major arcana tarot card decks instead of dice. Characteristics, attacks, actions, all done by drawing cards from a deck instead of rolling dice 😀

Playing a bit of Pathfinder this week and my boy (playing a dwarf mage) says, “This is boring” just as his character takes lethal damage. The rest of the family says, “well, if you don’t want to play with us, we’ll get on without you.” And, with a little help from this GM, they did. He comes back the next day saying, “I want to play, but something more fun.” Barbarian, anybody? Bring him into the next game and he’s where all the action is and everybody is grateful for him.

Lesson learned: sometimes, it’s a matter of finding the right character fit to the player.